# machine0

13 Hacker News commenters recommended machine0 and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Persistent CPU and GPU cloud VMs with root access, per-minute billing and a CLI built for agents. Critics say pricing is unclear and the minimal API is not a strong moat.

## Why people recommend it

- Per-minute billing, cheaper compute (2 comments): "The per-minute billing on persistent VMs solves a real gap between serverless and reserved instances." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49362054)) "It's also a lot cheaper, especially for compute intensive workloads." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49350118))
- Root access and GPU passthrough (2 comments): "machine0 is a persistent VM you own: root, your own driver/CUDA/kernel, GPU passed straight through" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49353720)) "Very cool! I'll definitely check this out for auto-research like experiments, esp. with GPUs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546947))
- Easy to use with agents (2 comments): "customers are happy to pay for agent first DX coupled with the performance and reliability you expect from an established cloud" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49350756)) "Great product super easy to use with claude code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48544629))
- Reliable VMs without DevOps (2 comments): "customers are happy to pay for agent first DX coupled with the performance and reliability you expect from an established cloud" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49350756)) "just want to be able to spin up a powerful & reliable VM without worrying about DevOps" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49349399))

## What people warn about

- Pricing unclear or hidden (2 comments): "If you’re gonna pretend to give pricing give pricing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49354202)) "If you’d rather hide it, don’t throw out $0.013" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49356303))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Hetzner](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hetzner.md): 415 recommend
- [DigitalOcean](https://hackerapproved.com/p/digitalocean.md): 133 recommend
- [exe.dev](https://hackerapproved.com/p/exe-dev.md): 115 recommend
- [Hetzner Cloud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hetzner-cloud.md): 99 recommend
- [OVH hosting](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ovh.md): 81 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "machine0", https://hackerapproved.com/p/machine0/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).